Diane’s had enough of Panzee biting on her tail, and said she’s getting to smell pretty bad. I suggested that it would be OK to take her to the dog groomer because Ozzie gets to go about once a month. Panzee has never been so I think it’s about time. Now, however, we need to wait for her tail to heal where she’s removed all of the hair from about a 4-inch patch. In an attempt to help her out a little, before we realized she’d ripped all the hair out, we gave her Benadryl because the vet said we could. That was information for Ziva, but it works for Panzee, too. That seemed to help a little with the incessant biting and chewing. Then came the odor of blood, which Diane can smell, but I can’t. Luckily, Jeff and his friend, Marc, came by so we had extra hands to find out what was going on. I tried to look, by myself, but Panzee reminded me that she’s got really big teeth and she’s not afraid to use them. There was no touching the tail. No way. It took 220 lbs of Jeff laying on her to keep her from biting me. Instead she nipped at Jeff’s cheek a few times which was just fine with me. She didn’t break the skin so we know it was just warning nips.

With all the manhandling, the tail was accessible so Diane squeezed about half a tube of antibiotic salve on the wound then we put down some gauze and wrapped it up with paper tape. When it was all done it looked like Panzee had a scrunchie on her tail. She didn’t seem to mind, once we let her go, but last night, after everyone went to sleep, she slipped it off the wound so she could lick it. We switched from Benadryl to aspirin yesterday to help her with the pain. That’s OK, too. I checked. Since she relocated the scrunchie we decided to get her to the vet for a professional decision about how to proceed. I’m guessing she’s going to wind up with one of those Elizabethan collars. She’ll hate that.

Yesterday we unrolled the ‘new’ 9×12 carpet Diane got that I don’t think I’ve mentioned. It’s mostly purple and is for the living room. We unrolled it in the garage then she made me vacuum it 15 times – on each side! That’s true. With the good side down to start, I ran the vacuum over the back to knock as much dirt loose as I could. When I folded back one side there was an incredible amount of fine dust on the floor. I vacuumed that up, unfolded the part I’d originally folded, then folded over the other end and repeated the process. I did that 15 times before there was no evidence of dust. I did this in lieu of shampooing it which, it turns out, was a stellar idea because it would have just coalesced into mud, I’m sure. Before the last go round with the vac we replaced the bag. I’m here to tell you that it was super full and weighed more than any vacuum cleaner bag I’ve ever had the pleasure of changing. I bet it was 10 lbs, a testament to our eBay vacuum.

Now the rug is rolled up and stored in Lydia’s room until we decide if we want to move furniture around in the living room again. Right now there’s a large plastic matt on the floor, the kind people put outside their Winnebago’s to keep as much dirt out of the rig as possible. It’s mostly purple, too.

This morning I had my scheduled cleaning appointment at the dentist. After my hygienist, Cheryl, was done I talked with Dr. Grimm and arranged to have one of my teeth pulled. It’s one I never use so I decided to get rid of it. That’s going to happen in September. I figure by then I’ll be able to save enough money to have it done.

At lunch I read my book, on my iPad, like normal, and Diane was watching All My Children on Hulu, on her iPad. She uses headphones while watching All My Children so it won’t annoy me. Then all the sudden she started shouting out random letters, and various cast names which concerned me. I watched for a while and figured out that she was answering questions that were being shown on the screen. She finally realized that I was perplexed with her tourettes-like behavior and started answering the questions silently, occasionally pumping a fist in the air to indicate a correct answer. After that it was much easier to concentrate on my book. After she was done she removed her earphones and asked me a question. I shouted the answer. She smiled, an indication that I wasn’t in trouble for being rude, that she understood that I was merely replicating the manner in which she was spouting her answers to her quiz. Then all was quiet. Lunch was done and it was time for me to get back to work.

At the bathroom, on which I’ve been working forever, I managed to get the new valve installed and one of the four exits connected to the tub filler spout thing. Jennifer was my guiding light, keeping me focused to get that far. I’m using PEX to connect it instead of using copper tubing. PEX is much simpler. There’s no danger of getting burned and I already had the tubing. Just needed to get the connections. Right now I’m three connectors shy of success. ACE didn’t have the ones I thought I needed so I just purchased some that I randomly removed from the racks. Tomorrow I’ll take back the ones I didn’t use and see if they have the ones I really need. I’ll figure it out, one way or another.

Now dinner is done and I’m sitting in the Man Room with Lydia and Jeran who are watching Merlin on Netflix. Diane and Jennifer are at either Safeway or Fred Meyer, cruising the isles, shopping for things to eat.

It’s a good day to be me.